Polish High School Students Earn Laurels at International Linguistics Olympiad

Four Polish teenagers have won high honors in an international linguistic competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. One of the two First Prize winners is Lukasz Cegiela from 14th High School in Wroclaw, Poland, who won in a tie with Adam Hesterberg, from the USA.

Eight high school students from Poland competed in the Fifth International Linguistics Olympiad in St. Petersburg, Russia from August 1 through 4, 2007. The participants competed individually (solving 5 problems during 6 hours) and in teams of four (1 problem during 3 hours). The winner of the First Prize in the individual competition was Lukasz Cegiela from Wroclaw, Poland, who tied with Adam Hesterberg, of Seattle, WA.

As in the previous years, there were also awards for the best solutions to individual problems. Out of eight such awards, four went to Polish participants: Lukasz Cegiela (14th High School in Wroclaw) for Problem No 3, Mateusz Dolata (1st High School in Leszno) for Problem No 4 and Milosz Krupski and Witold Swiatkowski (both 14th High School in Wroclaw) for Problem No 1 (in a tie with Jeffrey Lim from the USA). They were all members of one of the two Polish teams, which won most awards among all fifteen participant teams. Members of the other Polish team were: Szymon Depta (1st High School in Gliwice) Mikolaj Hojko (3rd High School in Wroclaw), Sabina Banasiak (14 High School in Wroclaw) and Aleksandra Kozera (ZSO High School No 6 in Radom). The two Polish teams were selected from the finalists of ''Konkurs Lingwistyki Teoretycznej, Matematycznej i Stosowanej'' that took place on April 14, 2007 in Wroclaw.

The International Linguistics Olympiad is a yearly event in which secondary school students compete by solving linguistics problems, mostly in languages they have never learned. This year there were problems in Braille, Turkish, Tatar, Georgian, Movima (Bolivia), Hawaiian and others. The detailed results are on the official web site of the Olympiad:

The source for much of the information here, the details about the results of the Polish team at the International Olympiad in St. Pebersburg, Russia, as well as more detailed information about the competition in Poland, can be found at